


True Power

by AbnormalSomething



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Don't read if you're not caught up, Spoilers, reflecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3982699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbnormalSomething/pseuds/AbnormalSomething
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi is reflecting on his past and it's tearing him apart inside, but Hange's there to scoop him out of his slump as she has a way of doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True Power

  
    All of this time… I never knew it, but I had family… The image of Kenny Ackerman's dying face flashed through my mind and I cringed at the memory…  
  
    "That asshole was my uncle the whole time huh?" I laughed bitterly, tilting my head back where I sat at the edge of my bed, "Figures." I sighed, laying back on the bed, my muscles tired and my skin sticky from a long day of work, I thought to take a bath, but I didn't feel like it, I was just too exhausted to even think of moving, but my eyes wouldn't close either, not with all of the memories of my past flashing through my mind every time that I tried to close them…  
  
    Memories of being a brat myself, of my mother dying and being hungry all of the time, of fighting, of fearing for my life, memories of Kenny leaving me, of me no longer fearing for my life because I knew I was stronger than anyone else, but I was still so damn lonely… I might not have been one for emotional shit, but seeing Kenny and finding out we were related was doing a helluva number on me… Made me feel sick to my stomach, I couldn't get the thoughts from my mind, and I didn't have the energy to even clean my room like I usually did when I wanted to clear my mind, I was too physically and mentally exhausted to do anything but stare up at the swirls in the wood that made up the ceiling.  
      
    I tried again to clear my mind but a stupid thought entered my mind, one that popped up in my head every now and then, of what my life might have been like if my mother hadn't died. I liked to imagine I would have had a normal life, but hell, I knew better, there was no one 'normal' in the underground anyway… But being in the underground with my mother would have been better than growing up alone at least… And growing up with Kenny wasn't much different than being alone anyway, shit even now when I looked around this room I was _still_ alone.  
  
    The people in the city might have called me a hero, but they feared me all the same, they talked shit when my back was turned, none of the recruits knew me well enough to say they really cared about me either way, they wouldn't have missed me if I died, Erwin might not have been so bad, but I never really forgot that he blackmailed me to get me here in the first place; not exactly the basis of a good friendship… Now that I took the time to think about it I was just as alone now as I'd ever been, if I disappeared right now, humanity would take a blow sure, but no one would have really care… Was this what my whole life would sum up to? Kenny told me that so long as I had power I'd be okay in the world, but I was humanity's strongest soldier according to them and I had _nothing_ but bad memories and an empty fucking room… No matter how neat I kept the room, it didn't matter really, I had no control over anyone that left me behind, but at the very least I could control that there was no dust on the window sill, that my uniform was nicely pressed, that my cravat always was clean, that my tea was organized in the cupboard, but it didn't make the fact that I came from the dirty ass underbelly of this world go away, it didn't make anyone really give a shit about m-  
  
_Knock Knock_ … My eyes lazily turned to the door… I was not going to answer that, the door was too far away and I was too tired to bother yelling for whoever it was to go away, but as soon as the door started opening without me inviting the person in, I knew exactly who it was before they even entered the room… Only one person was that confident that they could enter my room without me letting them in.  
  
    "Hello there, Lance Corporal." A smiling face called out to me as she pushed the glasses up her nose with her good arm… My eyes fell on the spot where I knew the gaping wound on her arm was underneath the bandages… Seeing her get shot and me not being able to do anything about it earlier was bothering me too… When I saw her flung into the wall like some lifeless corpse, I almost lost my shit… I was still pissed about it, but I knew she should have been resting instead of checking on me.  
  
    "Not in the mood to talk." I grumbled, turning to look back at the ceiling, but just as I should have known, that wasn't enough to make her leave.  
      
    "I heard that you thanked the recruits." I could hear the smile in her voice, "They were really happy to get praise from you I think, especially Historia, she looked awfully pleased after she punched you, but even more so when you praised them. Erwin even mentioned how impressed he was by how well you got along with the younger recruits, he was pretty shocked to hear that you thanked them."  
  
    "Tch, I give people credit when credit is due, even when they're brats."  
  
    "Well, yes I know that, but other people don't expect you to be kind when they see your face and hear about how strong you are, but I know you're a nice little guy." she chuckled. I could feel the bed sink next to me as she sat down.  
  
    "You just came here to give me a pat on the back?"  
  
    "No," her voice suddenly sounded more gentle now, "When you came back to the barracks you looked… Upset."  
  
    "…Upset?" I asked, looking to her now while she nodded her head, her gaze fixed dead ahead.  
  
    "Yes." she frowned looking deeply concerned, but I didn't know why the hell she was frowning just because she thought I was upset, "I know you don't usually talk about your feelings, but I thought I'd offer you an ear if you decided you wanted to talk." I stared at her a moment… She was always like that… Saying things you never really expected her to say, but you knew better than to be shocked anyway, because she was Zoe Hange.  
  
    "Kenny was my uncle, my only family I had left." I sighed, looking back to the ceiling, "He's dead now. Left me that box." I jabbed my thumb to the box on the table, "He said it can make people titans, but I don't know what to do with that shit, you can take it to your lab or do whatever the hell you want with it, Shitty Glasses." I turned to see her reaction, and sure enough her eyes lit up, for a moment as she looked at the box before she turned at me, concern in her eyes.  
  
    "The box is open… You weren't going to use it were you?" she asked hesitantly… I'd actually thought about it… I was humanity's strongest, but I was still too weak; Hange got hurt, my squad was killed in front of my eyes, everyone was in danger, I thought for a moment that if I became a titan, I could stop it, after all it wasn't like anyone would miss me… But from the way Hange looked at me, I couldn't be sure if that was true anymore.  
  
    "You'd like me better if I were a titan." I joked flatly.  
  
    "Nah, I like you as the pocket sized little guy you are." she gave me a conflicted smile…I knew she didn't believe me entirely.  
  
    "You taking the box or what?"  
      
    "Hmm, I'll get on that later." she hummed, clearly relaxing a bit as if she was glad to take the box away from me.  
  
    "Not taking it now?" I asked and she snorted a laugh at me like I was an idiot.  
  
    "I can work later, even I take a break now and then." She chuckled, "Besides, I already told you I came here in case you wanted someone to talk to." Her voice was gentle again, "You know I wouldn't tell anyone" She reminded me firmly, her eyes were gentle as she peered down at me, they looked warm… comfortable… trustworthy.  
  
    "I know." I sighed, "I'm tired."  
  
    "I can tell, you're laying in your bed with dirty clothes, I knew right away something was wrong with you." Her eyes went wide in astonishment.  
  
    "Pff…" I couldn't help but laugh at that somehow… She knew me pretty well.  
  
    "It's good that you can laugh at least, you must not be feeling all too horrible, so I guess I'll go since you said you're tired." the bed shifted next to me as she moved at stand, and without thinking, without hesitation, I reached out and grabbed her wrist on her uninjured arm.  
  
    "Stay. I'm not that tired." The shock on her face lasted only for a moment, before a gentle smile took its place.  
  
    "Sure." She smiled, moving to sit back down, but I didn't let go of her wrist… It had actually been a really long time since I'd felt the warmth of another human being in my hands… Feeling the way I was feeling, I found it oddly comforting… I didn't want to let go. She noticed my hesitation, she slid her hand upwards, taking my hand in hers wordlessly.  
  
    That was one thing I liked about her at least… Hange might have talked a lot, to the point of seeming annoying to people sometimes, but at times like this, she could silently offer an ear for her friends who needed to talk, or a hand to those who needed to feel warmth… I watched the spot where our hands met and wondered when was the last time I'd held someone's hand like this… Mustn't have been since I was a kid, before my mother died, but my mother's hands were different than Hange's. My mother' hands were thin and frail from illness, you could see the angles of her bones through her dry pale skin, it was the kind of hand that you knew only belonged to someone who was dying, but Hange's hands were calloused from working, healthy from meals that she probably never had to fight for, or never had to put on a man just for a bit of money the way my mother had to do in the past….  
  
    From where I was laying down, I watched Hange from the side of my eye, looking over her profile, from her messy hair, to her muddy boots…If I really though about it, I should have been jealous of someone like Hange; someone who learned to read at a young age because they could afford school, someone who could wear their emotions on their sleeve because they didn't have to worry constantly about being stabbed in the back, someone who could smile like they didn't have a care in the world… Yeah, I might have been jealous to the point of hating someone like Hange if they were anyone, but Hange… She had a weird sort of charm I guess… She was just likable, and kind and comfortable to be around, to the point where I'd go look for her if I hadn't seen her in awhile, to the point where I cared about her… to the point where I got pissed off when she was hurt like she was now… Fuck… The way I felt about her wasn't just some happy little friendship… it was more than that, and I'd known that for sometime.  
  
    "What is it?" she asked, I realized I'd been staring at her, but I didn't look away.  
  
    "I was thinking." I sighed.  
  
    "About what, about me?" she laughed as if she expected me to make a joking jab at her as I sometimes did… The only person I really joked with now that I thought about it…  
  
    "Yeah, I guess." She blinked in shock, clearly as shocked as I was by my answer.  
  
     "W-what about me?" she stammered.  
  
    "Not sure." I lied.  
      
    "You're a horrible liar." she snorted, laying back next to me now, her hand still holding my own.  
  
    "It's nothing worth saying." I sighed. Before she showed up here I was feeling pretty alone, if I fucked up and said something weird now and ruined the friendship I had with her, I'd feel more alone than ever… If I told her what I was thinking it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I didn't have education like her, or a good background, my manners weren't great, the way I spoke was rough and shitty, I couldn't make things sound all pretty and smart like she did… If I held her hand tighter, if I held her to me the way I wanted to do, she'd probably freak out, and I didn't blame her, but if she didn't freak out, that would be all the worse for her, because then she'd be stuck with a piece of shit like me.  
  
    "People don't make faces like that if it's nothing worth saying." she frowned slipping her glasses to the top of her head as she looked at me, "You can tell me what's wrong you know." her brows pulled together, her big brown eyes burned into me as she stared at me, and even though  I knew I should have told her to leave right then, I couldn't, I just stared back at her, my hand holding hers a little tighter.  
  
    "Is it because of Kenny being your uncle?"  
  
    "Not really." Kenny being my uncle shook me, the thought of losing the only family I had, shook me, it left me feeling a kind of lonely that I hadn't felt since Kenny walked out on me in the first place… But I'd been living under the impression that I had no family for years, I was just right back where I'd started, this pain I felt would pass and I knew it… But I had other concerns… Townspeople might have called me a hero feared me, the young recruits may have looked up to me, the veteran recruits might have known me on the surface, but… Zoe Hange looked me in the eye as a human being, and not once since I'd known her had she ever looked at me as anything else, but she _still_ chose to stay around me… I didn't have it in me to tell her the truth about what I was thinking and ruin what I had with her.  
  
    I could feel her eyes searching my face before she sighed, "If you say so, but I'll listen if you want to talk, no matter what or when."  
  
    "Tch, even if you're in your lab?" I teased tiredly.  
  
    "Even if I'm in my lab." her voice was dead serious and we met eyes again, "I mean it Levi, you don't have to act tough, we're close enough where you can say what's on your mind." she nearly pouted, it was like she was almost hurt that I couldn't open up to her, but even so, she still respected that I didn't feel to talk.  
  
    "…Hange." I sighed… I couldn't take it anymore… Slowly I leaned towards her and to my shock she didn't move away at all as I rested my head on the space between her good shoulder and her neck, my lips rested near her ear, but she still didn't move at all, actually I felt her hand squeeze my own a little tighter to my shock.  
  
    "What is it?" She murmured, her voice pouring in my ear calm and gentle thanks to the angle that I was at.  
  
    "Why the hell did you come here to talk to me?" I asked, burying my face in the warmth of her neck a bit more… She might not have smelled like a flower garden, but she smelled alive, the way Hange should smell… She could use a bath, but it was bearable, it was oddly comforting having her smell so close.  
  
     "Because I was worried about you."  
  
    "Shit… I'm too tired Four Eyes, I might say something stupid 'cuz I'm like this…"  
  
    "Stupid like what?" She asked quickly.  
  
    "Like …Let me hold you." she went quiet a moment and I waited for her to pull away, but she didn't…  
  
    "Might be difficult with my arm." her voice had a jumpy edge to it, I couldn't tell if I was making her uncomfortable or if she was happy, but I was already saying it now so I may as well go all the way… I pressed my lips to her cheek, unsure what words I could have said to have expressed what I was trying to tell her… To my surprise she didn't pull away… or laugh… or shut me down, she held my hand tighter.  
  
    Turning on my side, I let my free hand reach out and cup her face and the side of her neck, gently pulling her towards me, she tilted her head against me so that we were closer, and for a long moment neither of us moved… Sure I was a man and sleeping with her might not have sounded like a bad idea, kissing her would have been nice, but I just really needed to hold her… Just to remember that _I_ was alive and _she_ was alive and that _we_ were okay, that I would be okay and that so long as I was alive I'd be sure to make sure that she _stayed_ okay… And even though neither of us said a word while we lied there, I knew that she knew what I was thinking, because oddly enough, she always seemed to.

* * *

  
 Some time passed and eventually I let her go, offered to help her change her bandages, which somehow ended up with me helping her to the bathroom to bathe first… Which ended up with the two of us taking a bath together, which was fine with me because I didn't want to be apart from her at the moment… The whole time we spent together, it was in silence, but I felt more okay than I had all day with her so close, and from the calm look on her face it seemed like she felt the same.  
  
    We ended up back in my room, I redid her bandages, dried her hair, brushed it out for her too, because it kept me busy, kept me from thinking about my family and Kenny and the potion in the little black box across the room… And because seeing the little smile on her face as I brushed out her hair and pulled it up lifted my spirits, though I didn't tell her that…  
  
    The most we were apart that evening might have been ten minutes, when she ran back to her room to grab a pack of playing cards that she said she had… We played cards for a long time after that, she got too into it and tired herself out after a few hours and then she flopped back into the bed… I move to lie next to her, tucking my face into the side of her neck again while she ran her fingers through my hair… The bad memories stopped at some point before that though, her company kept them away I guess… My mind went blank and the only thing I focused on was her hands in my hair and her warmth next to me, and before I knew it, I fell asleep….  
  
  
    I woke up at some point through the night to find the spot next to me empty, and I hate to say that my heart sunk, but it did. I looked around in the dark room for any signs of movement and at first I saw none, much to my disappointment, but then I saw the door was cracked open, and I could hear someone speaking outside… Sounded like Erwin.  
  
    "Is he okay? He looked distraught." Erwin's voice was low and quiet in the hallway.  
  
    "He'll be okay, don't worry about it, I'll look after him." I could barely hear Hange's voice either, but I managed to make out the words.  
  
    "I see… Is that why you ran off to his room without reporting back to me first like I'd requested?" Erwin sounded amused.  
  
    "Oh!" Hange squeaked, "I forgot, I can write up a report in the morning."  
  
    "Relax Hange, all I was going to do was tell you to rest your arm, it would be a shame if it healed poorly and you lost the use of it, I'd know." he laughed quietly. "But I see my concern isn't needed since it seems as if your bandaged have been changed."  
  
    "Ah, yes, Levi helped me." she laughed almost shyly.  
      
    "Good to see you two have each other's backs, should I return to check on him in the morning?" Erwin was asking, and though I didn't mind Erwin's company, I knew he would just ask me questions that I didn't feel like answering right now…  
  
    "Uhm, maybe give him a few days? Believe it or not, the last few days seemed to have taken quite a toll on him." She sighed. I smirked to myself… she knew me well… Her company was the only company I really felt like having around right now.  
  
    "I see, I'll leave you to look after him then, and be sure to take care of yourself too." Erwin called, before I heard him shuffle off down the hall.  
  
    The door to the bedroom opened again, and Hange slipped into the room, scurrying to the bed before I felt her lie down next to me again.  
  
    "Who was it?" I asked, draping my hand over her waist and pulling her close.  
  
    "Just Erwin, he was worried about you, apparently the recruits were asking too, they must have thought you thanking them meant you were sick." she chuckled.  
  
    "Tch… I won't do it again." I grumbled and she laughed again, her breath tickling my ear from how close she was.  
      
    "Why'd you wake up?" She hummed, stroking back my hair again.  
  
    "You were gone." I admitted, breathing in the scent of her freshly washed hair.  
  
    "Well, I can't promise to always be around, but I'll at least be here when you wake up."  
  
    "And then what? We'll be friend and soldiers again?" I asked, my voice conflicted… This might have been a one night thing of her just offering me comfort… It wasn't like either of us had said what we were feeling, and she was weird, she might have just thought this to be some weird act of friendship.  
  
    "We're past friends and soldiers don't you think?" she pressed her lips to mine for a fleeting second and it said everything that needed to be said.  
  
    "Yeah." I agreed pressing my lips to hers long enough to feel her smile against my lips… We were quiet after that, nothing else needed to be said… Things between us were pretty clear… The little black box on my dresser sat now just as forgotten as my bad memories now that Hange was here next to me… Kenny said that we all just needed power to be be important, but up to this point, I'd been titled Humanity's Strongest and I was still weak compared to the titans, and to the humans; the people I was trying to save, they just saw me as a kinda useful thug from the underground, so if I was the strongest why was I still treated like shit? Kenny was wrong, it wasn't just strength that gave someone power, and it wasn't power that made someone important, it was the strength in their resolve… and in my arms, I realized now, that my resolve had been close by all this time wearing a pair of shitty glasses, neglecting meals and baths and taking the time to understand me no matter how busy she was and when no one else bothered to… Pulling her a little closer, that night in that dark room, I realized that even if I had no family, there was still someone who'd take it personally if I died… so I guess I just had to not do that, since I knew so long as I was around I'd keep her reckless ass safe and that sounded just fine to me.  
  
   

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, I just want a chapter of Levi worrying about Hange's wounds and Hange worrying about his mental status and them realizing that they're in love or something like that... Did you get that Isayama? Can you gimme that chapter? You just can draw it on a napkin and I'd be cool with that.


End file.
